Jakarta, July 18, (dpa/GNA) – Indonesia has lost more than 500 doctors who succumbed to Covid-19 as the country’s record number of daily infections has made it the new pandemic epicentre in Asia.
“There are now 545 colleagues who died as of July 17, and most of the fallen colleagues were in East Java, followed by Jakarta and Central Java,” Mahesa Paranadipa, a representative from the Indonesian Medical Association’s mitigation team, said in a streamed press conference on Sunday.
Indonesia’s capital Jakarta and the provinces of East Java and Central Java are located on the densely populated island of Java, which are under an emergency lockdown with the neighboring resort island of Bali since July 3 to stem the worsening outbreak triggered by the Delta variant of the virus.
Paranadipa said the number of doctors who had died so far in July was 114, or an increase of more than 100 per cent compared to the total 51 in June.
Doctors have said that Indonesia’s hospitals have seen a surging influx of coronavirus patients and they have been operating with more capacity than they could properly handle.
Indonesia’s health authorities said they have added more beds and set up new emergency hospitals for patients with mild symptoms.
“Although it remains debatable, the way we see it, our health-care facilities are already in a potential position to collapse, or a functional collapse,” Adib Khumaidi, the head of the medical association’s mitigation team said.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Friday that medics have began getting the Moderna vaccine as a booster shot, in addition to China’s Sinovac vaccines they already had.
Indonesia reported 44,721 new daily infections on Sunday, after a steady record of more than 50,000 daily new cases in recent days.
The death toll has reached 73,582, with 1,093 new deaths.
The Java-Bali emergency restrictions are due to expire on Tuesday, but government officials have said they could be extended for two more weeks.
A number of cities on Indonesia’s other main islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are also under restrictions after daily cases surged those regions.
GNA